The A539s
I've been running for the last 4 years are now rapidly approaching the end
of their life. With a trackday booked for September, they would soon
be finished completely! So I started doing some digging into a suitable set
of replacements; the A539 is no longer available, so I needed to find
a suitable alternative. This proved tricky, as 14" rubber now seems
to be dominated by either cheap and cheerful brands, or expensive soft
rubber such as AO48Rs, Toyo R888s etc which are not suitable for my year
round use and high mileage. In the end the only real option seemed
to be Toyo T1Rs in 195/55 R14. This was 10mm wider than the present
185/60 R14 size, but with a similar rolling radius. However, as a
slightly oddball size they aren't especially cheap at about £210 a set

A
bit of further digging revealed that 15" tyres are much cheaper, e.g.
a set of 195/50 R15 T1Rs can be had for about £115, so nearly half the
price of 14"s. Also there are various 15" tyres that come
well recommended for kit cars. Hmm. I had a reluctance to swap
the wheels as I liked what I had, 14" wheels tend to be lighter than
15"s (and I know my wheel and tyre assembly, at about 13kg, was
reasonably light), and 195 width looks a bit wide to my eyes... however I
decided to look into the possibility of new wheels & tyres, but on the
understanding that I would only go for it if I could keep the weight gain to the minimum, and still not
spend much extra money!

I
struggled a bit to get weight data for many wheels, but thankfully found
info on 4 wheel styles that wouldn't break the bank:

TSW Taruma

- 10kg
(ouch!)

Wolfrace Pro Lite

-
claimed 6.2kg

Dezent Motion

- claimed
6.4kg

Inovit Rapid

- claimed
6.8kg

-
later measured at 6.5kg

The TSWs were straight out of
the running because of the weight (and made me immediately very wary of
going for a wheel with no weight info) but
the other 3 would result in a wheel and tyre assembly of around 14.5kg
(15" tyres seem to hover around the 8kg mark). A 1.5kg increase
per corner is not insignificant, but I figured it was probably the way
forward for maximum tyre choice at lowest cost.

In
terms of tyre choice, these are the ones I considered:

Yokohama
Parada Spec 2

-
Generally positive reviews

-
Some reports that it's styled to look
good rather than be functional!

-
£140 a set

Scudo Stunner

-
Well respected in sprint & hillclimb circles

-
£140 a set

Marangoni Zeta
Linea

- Also well
respected in sprint & hillclimb circles

-
Same parent company as the Scudo.

-
£140 a set

Toyo T1R

-
Very positive reviews

-
£115 a set

I now set about hunting for a
good deal on a wheel and tyre package using some combination of the 3
wheel and 4 tyres on my shortlist, and came up with these options:

Wolfrace Pro Lites / Yoko Parada or
Toyo T1R ~£320

Dezent Motion / Marangoni Zeta Linea ~£360

Inovit Rapid / Toyo T1R ~£295

At this stage I asked for
opinions on the JPSC
forum and from various friends, and was surprised that the black
wheels were by far the most popular option. Black wheels are a bit
of a love / hate thing for me, they seem to work on some cars and not
others, and can quite often get lost in a 'black hole' the middle of the
tyre. However, the machined highlight on the edge of the Inovit rims
helped to lift their look a little, and I think they actually really suit
the car, matching well with the gloss black sidescreens and satin black
roll bar. To top it all they were the cheapest option at £295 all
in fitted with Toyo T1Rs, and were being sold by Midland
Wheels who are based 15 minutes from my work! I paid them a
visit to have a closer look, which also gave me an opportunity to confirm
the weight at 6.5kg per wheel (without tyre!). I liked them enough
to order a set! The end result is shown below:

The Mojo certainly now looks a
little more purposeful!

Clearance
to the cycle wings is very tight, about 3mm at the closest, but so
far this hasn't caused any problems. The weekend after fitting the
tyres I drove 300 miles, much of it on wet roads and some of it in heavy
rain, and the Toyos worked very well, ejecting lots more water out from
under the cycle wings than I can ever remember the A539s doing. They
also seem much less prone to tramlining in grooves on the road or when
driving over white lines and cats eyes, something I wasn't expecting to
change.

Another thing to
note is that the ride doesn't seem to have suffered with the extra
unsprung mass, and if anything I think certain aspects have improved; the
car now feels a bit less bouncy (which I'm putting down to less tyre wall
flex over larger bumps).

In
terms of cornering grip, they are more than a match for the A539s.
So, although early days at present, I'm currently very happy with the
swap! The old wheels and tyres will get shoved back on again if the
trackday in September is looking likely to be dry, after which I'll be
selling the old 14" wheels and tyres.